Monkey testing facility near Melbourne

DOWN a gravel track, surrounded by surveillance cameras, high metal gates and electrified wire, is a long, unmarked building with a dozen cages on each side.

Macaque monkeys hang on the wire of these sparse enclosures. They chirp, and two poke out their tongues provocatively.

Several of the possum-sized monkeys have bulky yellow collars around their necks. But through a zoom lens, it's clear the collars are more like yokes, with handles attached. These primates are no pets, and this is not a zoo.

A macaque monkey at the National Breeding and Research facility at Monash University in Gippsland. Photo: Justin McManus

This is a federally funded primate breeding colony hosted by Monash University in Gippsland. There are two such colonies in Australia - the other is in Sydney - providing primates for scientific experiments.

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Demand, it seems, is growing. Despite national guidelines requiring scientists to reduce their reliance on animal testing, experiments on primates have nearly tripled in Victoria in the past five years, according to figures uncovered by Fairfax Media.

In Victoria alone, 313 macaque or marmoset monkeys were experimented on last year. Many died.

The Gippsland breeding facility, from the ground and air.

Over the past eight years, experiments have included infecting macaques with HIV before removing and studying their infected genitals; delivering electric shocks to marmosets' brains; inducing potentially fatal diseases in pregnant baboons; and overdosing baby marmosets with opiates.

Most of the experiments are carried out by Monash and Melbourne universities, which claim the research is crucial to biomedicine and drug testing.

But some international authorities and medical experts question the need for many of the procedures. Some even say animal experimentation has delayed the progress of medical research, because testing on different species often yields different results to those in humans.

Other scientists say that many tests have no clear medical purpose, there is insufficient ethical oversight of the growing number of procedures, and the process - from the breeding of the monkeys to the experiments - is cloaked in secrecy.

Indeed, the woman who answered our call at Monash's National Non-Human Primate Breeding and Research Facility in Gippsland asked how we found the number.

She said it was an ''internal'' number and referred all questions to the media spokeswoman. ''We're not allowed to speak to the media,''

she said. ''It's no big secret society, it's just the contracts that we're under.''

The Monash facility includes a rectangular monkey house, which holds and breeds more than 400 monkeys. They are used in university research, and also sold to other laboratories.

The national code of practice requires scientists to use alternatives where possible and reduce the reliance on animal testing.

But government statistics released to Fairfax Media show that the number of primates used in research in Victoria has more than doubled in five years, from 128 in 2006 to 313 last year - 69 macaques and 244 marmosets. The number of monkeys housed in the Victorian breeding colony climbed from 332 monkeys in 2006 to 406 in 2011.

The NSW government reports 184 primates were used in the state in the financial year to 2011, while in the financial year to 2006, 185 were reported.

At Monash University's facility, many of the macaques hanging on the wire are destined to be infected with immuno-deficiency viruses for HIV research.

Researchers have claimed commercial-in-confidence reasons for limiting disclosure about the tests done on primates prior to publication of the research.

According to a paper published five years ago, 12 young macaques were taken from the facility, anaesthetised with ketamine and infected with immuno-deficiency viruses. Between 11 and 23 weeks later, researchers euthanised the monkeys and surgically removed their lymph nodes, testicles and other parts of their genitals to study how the infection had progressed.

That facility also breeds marmoset monkeys for brain and spinal research. In a Monash University study published in 2004, eight marmoset monkeys, from newborns to three-month-olds, were given an opiate overdose and tissue from their brains was collected in an effort to study how neurons relating to vision matured.

In a federally funded 2008 study at Monash, aimed at understanding the organisation of the marmoset brain, three monkeys had their skulls opened under anaesthesia so electric shocks could be delivered to their brains, in an effort to study how much current was required to create movement.

Professor Anne Keogh, head of heart transplant research at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, said that animal experiments had contributed to science in the past. But technology had advanced, she said. ''Many animal models are known to be very flawed in terms of translation to humans.

''There are alternatives and they are not being used … The problem lies in the animal ethics committees.''

She said that the ''ethics'' committees dealt mainly with the administrative paperwork of approving the experiments.

''Transparency is needed,'' Professor Keogh said. ''Doctors, clinicians, the people who donate money [to charities] should know what's going on inside animal institutions. The public has very, very limited access to information.''

The US Food and Drug Administration said in a 2006 release: ''Nine out of 10 experimental drugs fail in clinical studies because we cannot accurately predict how they will behave in people based on laboratory and animal studies.''

Dr John Pippin, a specialist in cardiovascular medicine who has served on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, said primate research was decreasing in the United States and that animal testing ''has actually been central to the failure to cure and ameliorate so many human diseases''.

Analysis of the National Health and Medical Research Council's database shows that more than $30.5 million in federal-government research grants has been distributed to primate breeding colonies and research involving primates over the past decade. Melbourne and Monash universities have received more than $23 million of the funding. The NHMRC is the Australian body for funding research.

Less than 20 per cent of the federally funded studies are categorised as for ''clinical medicine and science''. The bulk - 27 out of 32 - of the Victorian projects are for ''basic research'', which the Australian Research Council says is ''undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view''.

Former Australian animal lab manager ''Robert'', who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: ''When you are involved with these hierarchies in these universities, these people [researchers] have an agenda that they are pushing … They study a very narrow field and they are going to do what they are going to do no matter what. That is very evident if you go back to animal ethics committees. Most things get approved.''

He said he believed animal testing was a ''necessary evil''. But he now felt some aspects of it were wrong. ''My views are now that animals don't have a voice. We don't have the right to be able to take animals' lives because they don't think like human beings - we are ruthless in what we do.''

Robert, who was involved in animal testing on a daily basis for 40 years until he retired about seven years ago, said he had seen marmosets that had undergone ''painful'' teeth banding and kidney transplants. He said when marmosets were taken from their family groups for testing, the families ''get very upset''. ''They rush around and they make quite a lot of noise … They can get quite aggro.''

The ''fate of the animals'', as stated in the NHMRC policy on non-human primates used in scientific research, is that: ''In most cases, euthanasia will be the only option.''

''They don't put them back into the pasture,'' Robert said. ''They all end up dead. Every laboratory animal … is eventually put into a wheelie bin and burnt.''

Animal advocate Helen Marston, of Humane Research Australia, said animal ethics committees and researchers were ''extremely secretive''. ''If they are proud of what they do they should make it public.''

The committees are required to include an independent member, a vet, a member nominated by an animal welfare organisation and a scientist using animals in research. They are audited by the state government.

Melbourne University's Professor James McCluskey, who said he oversaw the finances of research at the university and appointed animal ethics committee members, said he would ''have to check'' whether committee members were made to sign confidentiality agreements. He never did, despite a repeated request.

He said primate research ''almost certainly loses money. … It's a price we pay … because we consider the research to be important. That type of animal research is not profitable other than intellectually.''

He said animal testing was ''a hugely sensitive topic and it should be''.

He said there was ''an awful lot of scrutiny and oversight … to ensure it is done to the highest ethical standards.''

But, he said: ''The idea of having cameras or a public gallery sitting in these sensitive discussions is absurd. The level of technical detail and understanding of the scientific purpose is already quite demanding. It doesn't make sense to me.''

The NHMRC says in its policy on the care and use of non-human primates for scientific purposes: ''Animal experimentation remains crucial to a high proportion of NHMRC-funded research designed to find better ways of preventing, treating and curing human disease, as there are many situations where no alternatives exist.''

A summary of Monash's colony on the NHMRC database says the colony ''ensures that the Australian community has access to macaque monkeys and marmosets to carry out research under the highest quality conditions.

''Additionally, the colonies will provide a key resource in any national response to pandemics and bioterrorism for vaccine and response development.''

Monash University did not respond to Fairfax Media's request, nor to a detailed list of questions about the operation of the breeding facility.

Spokeswoman Stacey Mair wrote to say that public visits of the facility were not allowed due to ''bio-security issues and health concerns for both animals and humans''.

''All animal work at Monash University is performed under the control of and with scrupulous adherence to the provisions of the Victorian Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and the regulations of the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council,'' she wrote.

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